Modern War in Miniature

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This mysterious set of rules was supposedly the inspiration for SPI’s Sniper. I do not know if this is true but spent some time tracking down a copy. Cheap copies are difficult to find but there is a downloadable version here:

Modern War in Miniature

So what do you get? The rules seem vague dependent on judge or judges conversant with the data in the book. Miniatures are placed on a sand table and a judge will perform some action with the figures dependent on player orders and the judge’s interpretation of how the miniatures would act. The judge also performs all necessary die rolls when some element of chance creeps such as whether or not the enemy is spotted or the accuracy of weapons fire.

I have heard the rules described as the first role playing rules but they really are not. Only the vagueness of the rules compels the use of judges though judges can also provide a fog of war by limiting player intelligence of the opposing force. The tables that fill most of the book offer something akin to tables in a standard wargame albeit more exhaustive. But the rules are presented through a series of examples which would seem to lessen their usefulness. But like the designers at SPI, players may find the rules provide a helpful stepping off point for an exploration of modern era combat.

As an example of the information contained in the tables, the Nambu machine gun model M1922 is 6.5 caliber with a weight of 22.5 lbs, manufactured and used by Japanese forces,has a muzzle velocity of 2400, an effective range of 300 yards and a rate of fire of 8 rounds per second.

Rules appear to require no scale in particular though the author uses 1/87 or 1/100 scale figures. Figure scale is 1 to 1.

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